This invention relates to the art of foods and, more particularly, to fruit spreads in a form similar to jellies and jams having improved texture and flavor characteristics and a decreased dissipation rate in the mouth during consumption in comparison with standard fruit spread products.
It is of course well known that standard jelly and jams are produced by blending a fruit ingredient, sweetener and water, preparing a stabilizer solution, such as pectin, and adding the latter to the blend to form a mixture thereof, and then cooking the mixture to a desired soluble solids content, and hot filling the cooked mixture into suitable receptacles such as jars. Such a recipe may include, for example, about 10% by weight of a fruit juice concentrate, about 57% by weight of the sweetener such as sugar, pectin in the amount of about 0.4% by weight and water in the amount of about 32.6% by weight. A suitable soluble solids content for the cooked jelly may, for example, be about 65%. The texture of a standard jelly is of course that of a gel which may be a soft or tough gel but, in any event, is somewhat solid. This texture makes it difficult to spread evenly and provides a mouthfeel during consumption in which the solidity of the jelly is noticeable to the consumer.
As is well known, fat mimetics, are edible materials used as fat replacements in foods to reduce the calories in the foods without decreasing the palatability and flavor of the food. Fat mimetics are materials which are inherently of lower caloric value than the fats they replace. Therefore, the calorie intake in a food containing a fat mimetic as a replacement for fat is reduced relative to the same food with fat. At the same time, the fat mimetic retains the desirable physical and organoleptic characteristics of fat in the food to which it is added.
A number of fat mimetics for the latter purpose and/or food products containing fat substitutes or replacements are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,830,787 to Klemann et al; 4,915,974 to D'Amelia et al; 4,985,270 to Singer et al; 5,011,701 to Baer et al; 5,063,075 to Yarger et al; and, 5,064,678 to Klemann et al, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. These patents disclose a variety of materials and compositions useful in foods such as pie fillings, frozen dairy products, salad dressings, icings and the like to reduce the fat content of the food product while maintaining the physical and organoleptic characteristics of the food product which would be attained if the food were prepared with fat. In all of these patents, the fat mimetic is a substitute or replacement for fat in a food which normally contains fat. In addition to the foregoing patents, U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,527 to Buckholz et al discloses the use of sclareolide for enhancing the organoleptic properties of food stuff whereby, for example, the sweetness of a jelly resulting from the use of a non-nutritive sweetener such as aspartame is enhanced by mixing sclareolide with the non-nutritive sweetener, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,947,604 to McGinley et al discloses an edible jelly having improved spreadability and resistance to heat at baking temperatures by incorporating in the jelly recipe a small amount of a composition of beta-1, 4 glucan and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose. Neither sclareolide nor the composition disclosed in the patent to McGinley has the characteristics of a fat mimetic, namely the ability to mimic the smooth and creamy mouthfeel, texture and lubricity of fat, when incorporated into a fruit spread product.